Downsizing Old Media is the troop supply train for “An Army of Davids”

Terri Bennett, a former chief meteorologist at a Charlotte, N.C., TV station is among the latest recruits in the “Army of Davids,” according to New Media consultant Terry Heaton.

Bennett’s contract was not renewed by the TV station where she worked. Out of a job, she launched her own Charlotte weather Web site instead of sitting out her non-compete clause or seeking a TV job in another city.

It’s pretty good. Her video forecast for this weekend includes several see-and-do items and the lack of weather maps and graphics in the background didn’t bother me at all. And it’s got a good start on providing rich local data using Weather Underground data.

Terribennett.com is potentially disruptive to anybody that does weather content in Charlotte.

Heaton says it’s just what Knoxville’s Glenn Reynolds outlines in his book, An Army of Davids, “the triumph of personal technology over mass technology.”

One of the unintended consequences of downsizing is that we’re sending capable people into the world to compete against us on the Web rather than creating new media options for them from which we also benefit. In this sense, traditional media companies may be supplying a two-by-four that’ll one day be smacking them over the head.